Make one of your 3 novas background characters, purchased using the Allies or Contacts background. You won't be able to "play" your Ally or Contact as you can your first two novas, but just wait a year.
I'm currently using both of my opening slots to create two novas who both have 5 in the Allies background and 3 in the Contacts background. I'm only going to be "playing" the two main characters, but they have a small stable of background characters to enrich their little worlds, and if I like any of them enough then I'll bring that character in as one of my Main characters first thing next year.

I'm new enough here that I don't have any characters in either 2010 or 2018, so I'm only getting the two startup slots. I can't really say that bothers me.

That's me too...total noob.

But that's a clever idea you have there, Soma.

Much like your namesake, you make me happy and at peace.

LOL

Thanks.

*laughs* To everyone who's asked: I actually do have three new character ideas, which is annoying not to be able to use at once, but the heart of the question is less how it impacts me (I can be patient or just triage concepts) and more an issue of "do people feel like this disadvantages people who haven't been as involved with 2018." If the consensus there is no, and people keep being reasonable about only bringing over modest numbers of imports, I don't see a huge problem or anything. The idea was just nagging me.

Why do people need to start with 2 or 3 characters at once? I have Revenant and Contessa in 2018. I'll only be bringing Revenant over at first simply because I have so much on my plate as it is that I can hardly keep my Exalted game afloat (sorry guys!).

Whether you have 2 ideas for a nova or 50, seriously guys n' gals... work with one at a time. Pace yourself and if you feel like it's something your going to like then bring in another after a few months.

Let's try not to over saturate a new thing with ideas that look great, but in six months we ask ourselves 'god, what was I thinking?'.

We have a year people, play a character for six months, if you like how it's going gradually introduce more.

I love it when you make sense.

I love it when you love me makin' sense.

I have my moments of clarity.

I've been thinking about Revenant's comment and the Law of Unintended Consequences all day. We started with less power in this setting because we could always add more later, but to remove it would be difficult if not impossible. I think the same thing applies to swarms of characters.

More later.

I'm not complainin'.

I'll make it work.

There is only one character I will have in 200X. That's an imported, COMPLETELY rebuilt Sakurako. You might recognize some of her, but the rest is completely remixed and reset.

All I have to say is Q1, primarily Mega Attributes, only Flight 1 and Q.Bolt 2. (Not even sure on the Q.Bolt either...)

More details to follow. Needless to say though Sakurako will be bouncing time between School, an Educational OpNet program, and tinkering... the ENDLESS tinkering!

Note: In this continuity... Long's character and Mine are family. Siblings to be exact.

Kinky!

No, not in the slightest... and if anyone tries to make a pass, Ryu's a bit... overprotective.

Hmmm, Endeavor and Machina in 200X. Well, we've discussed character builds to death, how about super-tech? Are we going to put a lid on the super-tech?

Simple super-tech seems fine is fine with me. If a nova wants to create a trinket here or there to make her life simpler, or follows the rules for making gadgets I don’t have issues, unless that nova it walking assembly line. Basically modern tech or the tech in the aberrant canon should be avail for tweaking so novas can enjoy them or make them simpler.

God killing Death Stars, Gundams, armies of probes or thins like that are just a bit out of touch with the universe. Also consistently creating anything involving gravity induction technology should be looked on a bit with scrutiny.

(raises hand)

You may perhaps wish to look with scrutiny on consistently creating anything. I'm not certain why gravitic induction draws your attention specifically but there are worse things. Creating a stasis "grenade" is one thing, while creating a thousand bullet-shaped then loading them into a machine gun could fairly be considered abuse.

For myself I believe the action of creating, and using, gadgets falls of the Rule of Dick rather than requiring a seperate rule.

I try to not state the obvious, but often enough I give people too much credit.



Absolutely right. If Endeavor creates a custom laptop with a super processor in it that provides her with a +2 bonus to computer rolls he is obviously being a dick and we should all wig out and go apeshit over his obvious violation of the rules.

I'm kidding of course.

Gadgets are more than just Q infused technology. Simple everyday technology can be made better through nova intellignce.

Even by the not-too-bright rules written in the APG, Gadgeteering isn't easy. It is a painfully time-consuming process that allows a lot of room for catastrophic failure shunting you back to square one. So already, there are checks in place against abuses like the design of Death Stars or the mass-production of quantum-infused tech.

By that same token, anything one might try to mass-produce - or even produce a handful of identical pieces - would probably face eventual scrutiny from PU's tech oversight department. Having one cyberkinetic NES Power Glove probably won't raise a lot of suspicions, especially if a nova wears it. But make half a dozen and give them out to the executive directors of your firm, and that might cause a problem.

Craig and Dave have both been here long enough to remember that the few abuses of these rules that have happened on this forum have been historically laughed off the fucking board. Should there ever come a time that a player oversteps the bounds of reality in their engineering, that's what you guys are here to police each other for, and if all else fails, that's what the Mods are for. I think it would be a mistake to put an arbitrary limit on this sort of thing when by it's very nature, it kind of tends to break the rules and be subject to the grace of execution.



Have I introduced you to my middle finger, Pedro? Say hello, Pedro!

This is relevant to my interests, as I am considering a gadgeteer...

Good stuff.

Not that I really plan on inventing a lot of gadgets. Most of them will be created via MC, and allowed to dissolve back into the ether.

Still. Useful to know.

I'd second that. Also given that this game is more or less realtime with the in-game time being the same as the clock on your PC, have anyone that is making gadgets follow the time guidelines in realtime. If the book says that it would take 3 weeks for phase one of your gadget build, well in 3 weeks you can roll some dice to see if it was successful. That alone would stop abuse.

This of course is just a suggestion not a mod decree.

Nice. This is what's been missing in my life.

Sorry. I thought tech was being discussed. For the record, I have no idea why someone would think gravitic induction is suspect over other endeavors. Not that it particularly matters. I was simply curious.

Simply because Aberrant has a version of a 'hover' car. This is basically the herald to an age of gravity induction technology. Technology that, even for nova intelligence, is not yet perfected.

Most players feel (and I'm generalizing) , that because they have mega-intelligence, and a template to work off of they are permitted to create about anything they want. Little hovering drones, perfected hover cars, aircraft with inertial dampeners... the list goes on.

M-Int PCs need to think before they consider whipping something up.

Oh, and who the hell are you anyway? A new player? An alt? Fill me in so I can insult you properly.

If I'm interpreting these comments right (and I may not be, since I don't live in your heads), you guys are being dicks. Why?

It's their natural state. I wouldn't worry about it.

Actually, I was being pleasant until he/she/it decided to get smarmy. That's all. I don't even know who he/she/it is so I was just asking.

That's it.

Same, here. Also, I was just teasing.

I thought you might be but I wasn't sure

Everybody in this thread needs to calm down and eat some fruit or something.

Gadgets (aka Novatech) can interesting.

Supertech can be cool.

There's the hovercars Revenant mentioned, plus all the fun stuff that was detailed in Elites and World Wide includng a technological device designed to break a person's mind or at least alter their personality. The device quotes domination as the power equivalent when I think they should have used limited telepathy or emotion control but White Wolf didn't ask me. The real bitch of it is that, while there are really good reasons why some things are impractical or virtually impossible even for novas, just the existence of nova abilities changes the equations quite a bit on other things. In pioneering brand new technologies it should take time. Novas may make greater strides in less time but they too are standing on the shoulders of giants to do their work. And not everyone in the world is ready to phase out their current technology just because the nova came up with something better. But what about something like a space station? That's a national endeavor with even a multinational entity like Project Utopia taking years to put one together that won't be finished until sometime in 2012 (IIRC). But does that jibe with having a nova with the Warp power on the payroll? Death Stars might be out of the picture but the right combination of novas should be able to build, test and place a satellite into orbit in a fraction of the time a baseline country would take. I say a fraction of the time only because if I said a weekend someone would feel compelled to argue.

Then there's gadgets...

Seph is right there's are (poorly written rules) on gadgeteering that should balance things out. My only observation on those rules is to note that powers like precog have been a thorn in the side of many on this site over the years. Not due to the power itself, rather, because the power is arbitrated primarily by the player running the character who possesses it.

Note on Internet Communication:
Craig and I were just talking about this the other day because of the crap we all saw go down between some players as we discussed the reboot for 200X. I take college classes online and the courses all require a team project, usually a paper but sometimes code, to be written by a group of people arbitrarily assigned to a team. One of the first things that was hammered into our heads is emotional content doesn't transfer in this media. In one of my classes my team was composed of a first generation East Islander living with her Army husband in Japan, a contractor working in the Middle East, a housewife in Oregon and second generation Indi working in LA. None of us are meeting physically, coordinating over the phone or in chat. It was all done via what was essentially a newsgroup style interface. None of us were from really similar backgrounds, knew each other or had identical expectations.

From that initial experience I learned emotional content doesn't tranfer well on the internet with or without smileys. And trolls aside, people are often perceived in ways other than how they think they should be perceived. That is the most tactful way I can put it.

Jack

Here's my view on this...

People tinker and tweak constantly. Sakurako would know how to upgrade things and make things work BETTER. But to be honest, beyond what people can do with honest work and research I couldn't make an Alienware Laptop powerful enough crack PI overnight. That's a quantum trick.

Besides, I'd play Sakurako out early on to be someone that knows how to put things together properly and repair them. She'd also probably know how to take things apart and put together things that while mundane have several functions. (like taking an OpNet laptop and adding a few accessories like a GPS reciever, and other things off the shelf.)

I have noticed that the game really doesn't accommodate mundane kit-bashing and Macgyvering. Being able to put things together that aren't simulating a nova power, yet aren't normally available unless built by the character with the proper parts.

I don't know if I'm stating this right, here, but I would rather have many pimped out computer rigs networked together for more processing power, over one Q-Teched out computer with some exotic computing gel core that gets 500 ghz processing speed.

That... and putting things together the hard way doesn't mean the toy you build will blow up in your face. (Unless you really mess up!)

Also keep in mind that we are not that terribly far from having the tech for flying cars right now, they just won't be working off anti-grav they'll be using regular engines. A M-int nova could take what already exists and spiff it up with new tech like a hypercombustion engine and custom software and have RL flying cars become production vehicles in a matter of a couple years rather than a couple decades.

A 'flying car' in Aberrant is a resources 5 purchase, and even then it's rare.

That's the point I'm trying to make. A nova should tinker all they like, but be intelligent about it.

I'd rather come up with alternate fuel hybrid vehicles than flying cars, thank you.

Besides, they're safer!

And... I am going Cyberkinesis after all. Changed up my build a bit but I think I like the results more than the initial re-envision.

How many brainiacs will be around this iteration, by the way?

Wagear, Gerad.... who else?

Troll... although he's pretty limited in that regard.

Genesis is a tech genius...Engineering Prodigy + Matter Creation.

I'll be nice and leave Hugin/Prodigy in 2018. Don't want to outshine those of you who try oh so hard to play a proper mega-smarty.

You mean by keeping him so far removed from the other players that you're all but not playing him at all? Yeah, way to fucking go, Confuscious: "man who play mega-smart nova play him best by not playing him at all".

Wow, that was mean-spirited.

I don't think I get it.

How do you 'properly play' a mega intelligent nova? Seems like there'd be all kinds of ways.

It was actually a joke.